Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Staff and employees of the Free Software Foundation

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Mackensen (talk) 15:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Staff and employees of the Free Software Foundation[edit]

Staff and employees of the Free Software Foundation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Deprodded. I think the FSF's notability is enough for this to go through a full-fledged AFD. - Sikon 13:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All who express an opinion in this AfD are invited back on the fifth/last day, to see if any arguments presented have changed their mind, or raise new points for them to express. Lentower 18:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete The FSF is certainly notable, but this makes more sense as a section in the Free Software Foundation article (the board members are there already). No need to keep their whole employee directory, complete with loads o' redlinks. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This article started as such a section in the FSF article, and was split off with no rationale, discussion, or consensus by User:Chealer (talk|contribs). Moving it back would be a one good resolution. If it stays, it needs a more editing: cats, an intro, an external link section to the FSF web site, etc. Lentower 18:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Red links are just an invitation from one editor to all editors to do the hard work of writing a quality article. This will be a bit harder for those who worked for the FSF in the '80s and early '90s, before the Web and Google happened. Doing work in a research library is more effort, then a quick Google. Lentower 18:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Red links assume that the subject is notable. How many of these are sufficiently notable to warrant an article, sufficiently obscure in today's world to be absent from Google, and currently have no articles? My guess is not many. All of which is irrelevant: Wikipedia is not a directory. Guy (Help!) 19:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per above, just working for the FSF isn't a claim to notability in its own right. The material needs to be of some encyclopedic quality. A section in the FSF article for those employees who warrant a mention should be more than adequate. --pgk 13:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Being employed by a notable company does not confer notability by itself. WP:NOT a directory. WJBscribe 13:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The FSF is not a company. A little research helps AfDs, before one expresses an opinion. At least, read a few of the related articles. Lentower 18:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ahem! You're not on safe ground by telling other editors to read the related articles. Reading non-profit organization will tell you that non-profit organizations are companies in law; and reading Free Software Foundation will tell you that the FSF is such a company incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Uncle G 00:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - This lists that, by opening this door, would be allowed. Be gone I say! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not a WP argument. Each AfD and each article stands on it's own merits. Lentower 18:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete WP:NOT a directory. Notability of FSF is irrelevant, really, we can safely leave this job to their webmaster. Guy (Help!) 14:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I PRODded this in the first place. WP:NOT a directory, basically agree with all comments above. FiggyBee 15:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, WP:NOT a directory, this is none of our business. These should go to their own website, we are not an advertising host. Terence Ong 16:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is not advertising. More like gratitude to those who stood by Richard Stallman (RMS) working very long hours for very little pay, when few thought that the free software movement would succeed. Without RMS and these people there would be no Wikipeida. No FOSS software to use at very low cost. No way the WP Foundation could afford to pay Oracle royalties. Lentower 18:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Wikipedia is not a directory of staff of non-profits.-- danntm T C 17:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak keep - I find interesting the list, for historic reasons, But Template:GNU seems to resume better the list. - Cate | Talk 19:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Lists of staff definitely don't fall into what I consider acceptable for lists. If the persons are notable, they get an article and an entry into our nice category system (if there's a category for people associated with the GNU project). --Gwern (contribs) 19:46 5 December 2006 (GMT)
  • Delete. Non-encyclopedic info -- AdrianTM 20:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Although Wikipedia may owe some thanks to the FSF, this doesn't mean that we should consider them any differently than other companies - and we don't have a list of all staff of any other companies (at least, we shouldn't), so there's no reason this should be a special case. Zetawoof(ζ) 20:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • FSF is not a company, it's a non-profit organization. People who work for it as as much volunteers as employees - low pay; long hours. Lentower 20:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not quite sure how this makes a difference. Zetawoof(ζ) 00:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Public service of this kind is notable. Lentower 00:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Commendable, perhaps, but not notable. Or would you also think, if it were possible, that we should have a list (with redlinks) of the 97 million people who work/volunteer for the Red Cross/Crescent? FiggyBee 01:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Merge back. These people are notable by virtue of the effort they expended, with Richard Stallman (RMS), in the founding of the free software movement, the GNU project, the GNU operating system, and the Free Software Foundation. Even RMS could not have done it all by himself, and many of his ideas, strategies, and tactics came from this team. WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory 1.7.1 notes: "Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List." - this is one of those cases. These FSF employees all worked at well below industry scale for their job descriptions, and worked well beyond 40 hours a week, to donate to the cause and as a public service. As noted in WikiPedia#History and GNUpedia, this team contributed to the idea that became Wikipedia. This team also created and proved that free software worked -- which caused the creation of the free software that Wikipedia uses. It's unlikely that Wikipedia would exist, if it had to pay companies like Oracle, royalties to use their software. Summary: This team and it's members are notable. Lentower 01:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to. Being associated with the list topic is not enough; the entries have to have achieved some kind of fame or notoriety as a result, and I don't think every single person who has worked for the FSF qualifies. Those that do, of course, are should be mentioned on the FSF page and have their own articles already. FiggyBee 01:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Huh? There are currently NO employees on the FSF page. They were ALL moved to this article. I wish that people who discussed the content of other pages, had actually read the other pages. Lentower 02:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, I was counting the Board as employees. I'll amend my comment above from "are" to "should be". FiggyBee 02:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • {Ahh, ignorance of a different kind. ;-} My apologies. None of the FSF Directors have been or are paid. This is true of most non-profits. And the FSF Directors are all active, giving much donated time (rarer among non-profits), and in some cases donated funds.
    • Editing the article to delete the less notable members of the FSF team would be OK. Lentower 02:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • That would leave it a very short list though. Better to mention those who actually are notable in the FSF article proper (yes, I am aware that the article currently proposed for deletion was split from the FSF in the first place). Preferably with some sort of context or assertion of notability rather than just a list, so it's clearer who to include and who not. FiggyBee 02:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not all FSF employees are in this article. Some of the least notable were never added. Lentower 02:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The most significant persons associated with the FSF should be mentioned in the article Free Software Foundation. However, per WP:NOT#IINFO, I can't see why Wikipedia would want to include a list of people just because they are staff/employees/volunteers there. --Metropolitan90 04:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and UNDO the edit to the FSF article that split the list out. There were minimal other changes in that edit which could be redone by hand. I see no reason to have this as a standalone article. Where are the independent sources on the topic of the FSF's staff? I'd be surprised if there are any. Putting the list back in the main article is appropriate; the editors there should evaluate whether they believe each red linked individual is sufficiently notable (per WP:BIO) that an encyclopedia article could be written someday - if they are not yet so notable, either unlink or remove completely. For the blue linked folks, the answer is presumably already obvious. GRBerry 09:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC) Tweaked bolding per suggestion on my talk. GRBerry 16:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge the notable members back into the FSF article, as per GRBerry. On the one hand, we don't want the FSF article to get unmanageably long (if its maintainers decide there are many notable members); on the other, having a list full of redlinks is not very useful, or encyclopedic. I believe the best course of action is to merge for now, and if in the future there start to be too many members listed in the FSF article (who have their own articles, meaning there was enough material to write at least a stub about them), *then* split off to a list. "too many" in this case meaning "enough to start a list with, so that it contains a majority of blue links". Capi 16:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete FSF is notable, a list of individual staff and employees is not and sets a very bad precedent Dragomiloff 19:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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